|
|
Post by Queen Xyla Rivenwood on Jun 23, 2013 14:05:09 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,485,true]
| [atrb=background,http://imageshack.us/a/img585/8650/8qy.png]Xyla Alu Rivenwood
~ S t e p ~ u p ~
And show your face while I erase
The ~ t r a c e s ~
Of all that came before me,
And you ~ k n o w ~ t h a t ~
Fate has turned its tide
You cannot ~ h i d e ~
And now the end is here.
| Scarlett Pomers |
Full Name: Xyla Alu Rivenwood
Nicknames: The Dark Queen, Queen of Nightfall, Xy (don't even think about it >B| )
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Orientation: Straight
Associated With: Nightfall (I AM THE QUEEN! >B] )
Wolf: Nibelheim, played by Synchronicity
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Grey
Height: 5'10''
Weight: 100lbs
Basic Build: Tall, willowy, and delicate; underweight, but not starving. Very lean musculature; her real strength is not apparent unless she's pretty much naked.
Permanent Markings: None
Other: Xyla is quite fond of jewelry and is rarely seen without some sort of jewelry on her person. She always wears a thick-banded silver ring on her left ring finger, set with an amethyst; the amethyst itself is set with a very small diamond. This is her wedding ring; she has never and most likely will never take it off.
Personality: Calculating and Manipulative : Xyla is driven towards her goal and will not let anything get in her way. Least of all, the hopes, dreams, wishes, desires, or lives of nearly anyone else. Here's where she gets complicated. Xyla genuinely cares about her "subjects." She worries about them, takes time out of her schedule to resolve issues, and takes a personal interest in getting to know and training her soldiers. She makes a point of personally meeting every prospective member and makes the decision of whether or not to let them join the group herself. At the same time, she uses everything she knows about her people to manipulate them and to play to their strengths. There is very little that she won't do or say to gain a loyal follower. Xyla is a masterful orator and has a certain magnetic charisma that draws people in easily. Pine also assists her in this; he sees other sides of people than Xyla herself does, and gets to know the wolves, as well. Because their minds are so tightly connected, Xyla learns and knows everything Nibelheim does, and she uses this knowledge readily. She projects an aura or power and confidence even when she is unsure of herself.
Sharp-tongued, Silver-tongued : Xyla has a very quick, sarcastic sense of humor. More to the point, her mind moves very quickly; she can remember obscure details or fabricate elaborate and convincing ruses on the spot, and she never forgets them. This makes her a highly-skilled liar—a fantastic skill to have when you have to keep track of everything you have ever told your various underlings.
Resolute : Xyla is extremely committed to her goal of deposing Queen Valecia. Again, she is not about to let anything get in her way, nor will she surrender or be steered off-course. She would die first.
Protective : What initially motivated her to take over as Queen was a belief that Queen Vyviana, and now Queen Valecia, could not protect their citizens and therefore had no right to rule. Xyla has made it something of her life's work to prove that she is a better Queen, responding to any threat with brutal and merciless efficiency. She is driven to protect her charges (her subjects) and to remove the people of Aurora from what she perceives to be Valecia's ineffectual rule ("tyranny").
Hubris : Xyla's primary fatal flaw. She might have a point that Aurora cannot effectively protect everyone, but she is guilty of hubris to believe that she can do better. It is one thing to protect a town; an entire kingdom is a very different task. Xyla does not understand this and would reject it if someone had the thought to try to tell her so. A lifetime of success has conditioned her to believe that she is pretty much the best thing that could ever happen to the world and, to an extent, that she cannot make mistakes.
Observant : Xyla misses very little. She learned a long time ago to watch and learn before acting, and with everything else she learns from Nibelheim, she can glean an incredible amount of information about someone just by meeting them. If you spend too much time around her, she is likely to learn almost everything about you, whether you intended her to or not.....
Decisive : Xyla makes her decisions quickly, and those decisions are final. She is rarely open to debate and even less inclined to changer her mind.... unless the situation changes. This come back to hubris in that she believes her decisions are always the best possible decisions.
Logical, but Illogical : This pretty much ties into everything stated above. Xyla makes all of her decisions based on logic (or at least, she likes to think so). On the other hand, she is not inclined to accept new evidence unless she finds it herself or she specifically asks for it.
Mother: Linnea Campbell (Deceased)
Father: Rory Campbell (Deceased)
Siblings: Katherine Campbell (Deceased)
Other Significant Others: Alistair Rivenwood (Husband, Deceased), Keira Rivenwood (Daughter)
History:
Xyla was born into the Campbell family in the time before Vyviana's rule. The Campbells were not a rich family by any means; they lived on the outskirts of the city, living off of only what their family farm could produce. The farm produced little surplus and thus little profit, but it was enough to keep the clan going, and the family was very proud of their land and their heritage. To a young child, the farm was a magical place full of hidden secrets and tiny wonders. Kittens in the hayloft. Fairy rings of mushrooms in the land that was left fallow on any given year. A veritable wonderland when it snowed every winter, and ice to skate on! Xyla's earliest memories are of such things on her family's farm, and of playing with her younger sister.
When she was four, Queen Vyviana ascended to the throne. Word of wolves had finally reached them, in the form of wanderers on the road that they used to venture into town. Wolves, surely not. Xyla, of course, knew only of the stories, and though these creatures captured her imagination, she knew they weren't real. They were just like dragons—they were only make-believe! Busy with a child's pursuits, Xyla soon forgot the stranger's tall tales. Two years later, she would never be able to forget.
Bandits. They had long been a problem while the kingdom had been without a monarch, but Xyla had never seen them before. The thought that they might attack her family was even farther from her mind than the wolves in the city. But attack they did.
Xyla, having gotten into a fight with her sister and subsequently run off into the nearby woods to pout, never saw what happened. She never heard the screams or smelled the smoke. While her father—unaware that Xyla was not in the house—struggled through the burning home, shoving heavy, disintegrating beams that had supported the roof for generations, staggering, coughing, light-headed from smoke inhalation and yet still screaming for Xyla, calling for her and promising to get her out.... While her father burned in his efforts to save her, Xyla was sullenly, idly, drawing with a stick in the dirt, hidden away under a pine tree. While her mother and her sister struggled and pleaded under the wretched men, and while they slowly died of their burns, the smoke they had inhaled, and the wounds the men inflicted on them; while her sister screamed in pain and her mother begged, Xyla toyed with mosquito hawks and tiny minnows in a small creek, still resentful that her sister had taken her toy wagon without asking and broken it, and that her parents had told her to forgive her sister instead of punishing the other girl. The last thing she said to them was that she wished she had a different family.
When Xyla returned as dusk began to touch the sky, she stopped and stared in confusion. What had happened to the house? The barn? Had she gotten lost and come out of the forest in the wrong place? Smoke. That meant fire; but could there ever be that much fire? Beginning to feel real fear for the first time, Xyla ran to the house. She shouldn't have done that; if she hadn't, maybe she could have been a child a little longer. But losing your entire family, and arriving just in time to see the bodies, to see your entire world reduced to ash and blood art such an age, has a way of murdering the soul just as effectively as a knife to the heart murders the body. When Xyla reached what used to be the walkway up to her house, she saw the guards, four of them, who had only an hour ago arrived to rescue the family. Far, far too late. The bodies of the bandits now lay among the corpses, but the guards had done nothing yet to hide the mutilated bodies of Xyla's mother and sister. Her father was nowhere to be found, having been charred and buried under the collapsed roof of her home. Xyla did nothing to announce her presence to the guards, who stood with their backs to her, nor did she notice the large, furry animals that accompanied them. Upon seeing her mother and sister—lukewarm, grey, and glassy-eyed—she did what anyone would do if they were being murdered. She screamed, and she cried, and she lost all sense of self.
Though the memories are not distinct, they are sharp. Crawling on the ground, ignoring the prick of dried grass into her tender skin and the way the dirt crumbled under her clawing fingers and became lodged under her fingernails. Blurry, teary vision that made the world seem to swim as she crawled. Her ears seeming to ring, but the sound was her own piercing cries. Grabbing at her mother's face and finding it the same temperature as the air, and there was no response; only sightless, staring eyes and slowly-seeping cuts that oozed more than they bled. The smell of smoke. Arms around her middle; being torn away from her mother. Screaming, clawing kicking; fighting like an animal. The smell of blood. The feel of fur and strong muscle under her. A man's voice, trying to calm her , but she would not be calm. Having her arms wrested from her control as she was bound. Fighting so hard against the bindings that she dislocated her shoulder. Pain. Grogginess. Silence. The vague feeling of ropes across her body, tying her to the creature.
The soul is a resilient thing. Even after it is killed, it never stays dead for long—it is only scarred. By the time the guards left her at the orphanage, Xyla had regained her senses. She realized that her shoulder was back in its socket and that there was little pain left save for a slight ache. When she was untied and allowed to dismount the animal, she realized what she was looking at, what she had been riding. A wolf. Full of wonder, she watched the wolf go as her new caretaker commented that ever since the Queen had found the wolves and taken her throne, the guards were able to do so much more to protect people.
Protect people. That was what guards were supposed to do. That was what the Queen was supposed to do. Those words stuck in her heard, and as Xyla grieved for the loss of her family, they festered. Where were they before? Why hadn't they protected her family? At the age of six, Xyla lost everything that had ever allowed her to be a child, and in their place, she gained a sharp intelligence. Xyla had always been bright, with great potential, but on the farm, there was no opportunity for education. In the orphanage, she learned to read and write. By reading, she learned things about the world that no child should or even could understand. She learned to be observant, and she spent hours watching people. Any people. She dissected their actions and learned about what made them tick. Whenever she could, she watched the guards, the castle, and even better, the Queen. She watched shopkeepers and criminals; townsfolk and creatures. Always, she dwelt on the importance of protecting one's charges, and on a belief that she could do better than Queen Vyviana
When Xyla was twelve, she put what she had learned into practice. Though young, her wit was swift and her words were smooth, and she easily convinced a number of children from the orphanage to join her in an effort to "liberate" some sweets and other rare delights from a vendor in the square. The plan went off without a hitch, and Xyla celebrated the occasion by christening her new gang of street urchins the Ghosts of Nightfall, because they would make it point to strike only at dusk. The gang, comprised of dissatisfied children and young teens from the orphanage, planned never to return to that place.
A year went by, and then two. When the odd plan failed, some of the children were caught and returned to the orphanage by force; others left willingly out of fear or a simple lack of commitment. Xyla did nothing to try keep them, nor to punish them for leaving. If they were disloyal, she didn't really want them, anyway. By the time she was sixteen, Xyla had been leading this little gang of urchins for four years, and it had dwindled down to herself and three boys. For the last two of those years, Xyla had been scheming something bigger than petty theft of food or baubles, or cutting purses. Finally, Xyla was sure that her plan and her cohorts were ready.
As the leader, Xyla knew her men well. Alistair, who had become a good friend to her and was overall a good-natured soul, was strong and fast, but overly trusting and a tad gullible. He had a massive crush on her, too, which Xyla could see as plainly as day and which she used shamelessly. She flirted with him and teased him with strategic touches and clever wordplay, and the encouragement left Alistair well and truly wrapped around her finger. Another boy, older than Alistair, was highly intelligent and had excellent thieving skills. He could pick locks and had a way of slipping through a crowd without being noticed; on the other hand, he was weak and easily frightened, and Xyla knew that he stayed with her more out of the fear of leaving than anything else; he was to lead the group. The third was a fairly average boy, the youngest, overly cocky, and with a quick tongue that was made for lying. Xyla, though, knew that she could trust him; his sense of honor, though warped enough to let him weasel out of nearly anything and shamelessly try to bed everything that happened to be female, would not allow him to betray someone who had saved his life, which Xyla had done more than once. It was sort of a given in a group like theirs. It may also have helped that she promised to finally let him in her pants if he did what she asked.
All it really took for Xyla to convince them to go along with her plan was a little convincing. She told them what to do; when the guards changed their shifts and thus when to strike, and where in the castle their targets were. She gave them a map she had acquired by dubious means (like all of her possessions). She told them that if they could get four pups, they would each have a wolf. More than anything, she told them her vision—Nightfall, as the gang was called now, would live in that castle one day. Xyla would be its queen, and they would be as kings! And as monarchs, they were entitled to companion wolves. Under such pressure, and with such promised rewards, all of the boys eventually agreed, and the night came when they stole into the castle to retrieve what they had come to believe was already theirs.
When they returned with only three pups, Xyla told them to decide who would not be getting one, because Xyla had masterminded the whole thing and was therefore entitled. While the other two set to bickering, Alistair immediately volunteered to give up his wolf. Xyla, very much pleased with her "puppy boy", gave him a kiss for his sacrifice, and Alistair turned over the sack which contained his pup. As soon as she touched the furry little creature, Xyla felt a sudden shock. A little dazed, she came to realize that her mind was no longer private; new thoughts threaded into and between hers. It was disorienting, but she knew enough of the legends to know that it must have to do with the wolf's powers, and she shook it off. On a whim, she then commanded the youngest boy to surrender his pup to Alistair. He resentfully complied, and Nightfall fled from the city, to a nearby town that was nevertheless out of reach of Aurora.
Over the next couple of years, Xyla began sleeping with her male underlings, as a way of rewarding them when they carried out their orders well. She had them train new members from the town. Her wolf, the only male of the three stolen pups, grew older and bred the two females, and the pups were given to promising members of her little kingdom. Xyla began calling herself Queen of Nightfall. She and Alistair became very close; though she was cold and manipulative, she did somehow manage to fall more or less in love with him, and they slept together more often. Her "rewards" became fewer, but not uncommon.
Until her monthly visitor failed to show up, anyhow. Xyla tried to ignore it at first, but it simply wasn't possible. A month went by, then another, and her clothes ceased to fit properly. Her belly began to protrude, and she could do nothing to stop it. Before she really began to show, she informed Alistair that he was going to be a father, which he delighted in. She was sure that it was Alistair's, since she hadn't slept with any of the others within the proper timeframe, and they married not long after; Alistair became known as the King of Nightfall. Xyla was eighteen.
As her pregnancy progressed, Xyla ceased to lie with men other than her husband at all, which anyone would see was perfectly understandable. Her daughter arrived about six months after her marriage, and the couple named her Keira. Alistair was a fantastic father to the girl, unafraid of the chores involved in raising a newborn and playing with the babe every chance he got. The little family had three happy years together while Nightfall grew and trained in secret. Then, when Xyla was twenty-one and Keira was three, Alistair led what should have been a triumphant attack on the castle of Aurora. Al of Nightfall joined him, except for Xyla, who was exempt because she was both mother and Queen, and other wives and children.
Those who survived and returned to Xyla's domain were few and consisted largely of the injured. Alistair was not among them.
The failure of the attack on the castle (in spite of the fact that they had managed to kill the Queen, leaving only a toddler to rule), and the loss of her husband, has made Xyla even more bitter at the entire kingdom of Aurora. Today, she is working ruthlessly to rebuild her forces so that she can strike again with renewed vengeance.
OOC Name: Anaiu
Other Characters: Saya
How You Found Us:Been here a while! :3
| |
|
|
